Clean Eating and Freezer Meals

After work, if I am being honest, i don't always feel like cooking dinner.  I am tired, hunger, and most often hangry.  I just want food to appear.  Well that line of thinking and feeling does not go very well with the idea of clean eating.  Clean eating calls for fresh ingredients, whole food, and made majority of the time by yourself.  To help solve this problem of exhaustion + hunger = quick food in my tummy now, I have been delving into prepping freezer meals.

I will never be that person who can spend an entire day cooking a series of meals and freezing. I get bored very often with the same meal and I like to shake things up.  So my way of preparing freezer meals is i devote 1 afternoon a week to the project, and i try to get a variety of meals out of one staple dish.  

So for instance I made a vat of my marinara sauce, I then used the sauce to make 1 pan of egg plant Parmesan, and froze 2 cans of sauce.  Those 2 cans of sauce could be used in so many ways!!! It doesn't just have to plain old spaghetti and that egg plant Parmesan we can eat for days afterwards. This is my process. It might not be the most efficient but it keeps us fed and my sanity. 

If you devote 1 afternoon a week to freezing meals, eventually you will have a nice stock pile so their is always food in the freezer to heat up.  Currently in my freezer we have 1 can of sauce, 2 cans of vegetable soup, and a pan of chicken casserole.  Not to shabby and I still plan to add 3 meals to that list later this weekend.  

I also leave cooking instructions on each of the dishes for my husband.  He usually beats me home now a days and it makes it easy for him to be able to just preheat and bake.  Viola, I come home from work with a fresh made, delicious meal waiting for me.  Sometimes I ask myself "Why haven't I been doing this all along?"  

Dallas Farmer's Market: Fall Festival

It is Autumn!!! I love the time year!  On occasion I do miss the autumn of my childhood in the Midwest; crisp morning air, changing of the leaves, apple picking, and bomb fires.  Now that I live in North Texas I don't get quite the same experience but autumn is still lovely and my favorite season.  I love being able to take long cooler walks, a hot cup of coffee, pumpkins, and everything about it. The activity in Dallas is electric.  The hot summer days have (almost) gone, cool nights are back, and there is all sort of activities to par take in.  If you are also a foodie like myself then you are always looking for a good mix of outdoor activity and food.  The Dallas Farmer's Market pretty much hits it spot on.

 The Dallas Farmer's Market currently has there Fall Festival going on Sept 15-Oct 31.  The pumpkin patch is open daily and you can get pictures taken on the weekend as well as play games.  I don't have kiddos but that sounds like a pretty fantastic Saturday for them and great memory making with a photo for keeps.  Plus Mom and/or Dad can also hit up that weeks grocery shopping.  We spend all summer trying to beat the heat and trying to stay out of the sun.  The fall Festival  seems like the perfect opportunity to get outside and enjoy all this beautiful sunshine and fresh fall air.  Plus you get to promote local businesses while your at it.  Check out other events at the Dallas Farmer's Market
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Clean Eating Vegetable Soup

With fall arriving in North Texas this weekend with a gust of forceful wind and storms, some cozy, comforting soup was what the day called for.  I decided to make some yummy hearty vegetable soup using a couple new (to me) vegetables.  I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out but dang can I say we each put down a couple generous bowl fulls today! It was so delicious and hearty, exactly what was needed to warm up my bones from the never ending rain/damp we have had this weekend.

I participate in a local fall share program through a local Dallas grocery store, Green Grocer Dallas. The wonderful thing about this program is I get a variety of different, local, organic, and in season veggies.  What this also means is I get to experiment with multiple different veggies I have a) never heard of before and b) would be scared to death to actually buy on my own in the grocery store.  So the beauty of this is, I get to support a local business, local farmers, and get to make delicious dishes with new (to me) ingredients!

I would suggest if you're in Dallas checking out this store, Green Grocer Dallas.  It is definitely a little gem.

I also made a very large pot of soup so that I could freeze a portion for meals to come. All of my ingredients were organic.  Also, if you don't have some of these veggies don't be afraid to throw in whatever you have (e.g., peas, green beans, corn, or Brussels Sprouts).

This is what Kohlrabi looks like, in case you don't know.  It is in the cabbage family.

Ingredients

• 1 quart vegetable or chicken broth
• 2 cups water
• 1 large onion roughly diced
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 2 diced tomatoes
• 1 8 oz can of tomato paste
• 1 cup of diced carrots
• 5 diced stalks of celery
• 1 large cubed sweet potato
• 2 cubed purple kohlrabi
• 5 cubed small turnips
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tbsp oregano 
• 1 tsp salt 
• 1/2 tsp pepper

Place all ingredients in a stock pot and bring to a boil, reduce to a slow boil, cover, and stir occasionally.  

Once all the veggies are cooked down and soft serve!.  I would also feel comfortable making this in the crock pot as well.

I served ours garnished with fresh cilantro and my Clean Eating/Dairy-Free Honey Corn Bread

Clean Eating, Dairy-Free Honey Cornbread

Today was a comfort food kinda of day.  Blustery winds, rain, and falling leaves. It was a true fall day.  In my mind nothing quite says comfort, like sweet cornbread.  It goes beautifully with a hearty soups or chili.  Just what you need to give a little warmth and comfort.

I made some modifications to the recipe by The Taylor-House's Sweet Honey Corn Bread recipe which can be found on The Taylor House blog.

The recipe required a few modifications to make it  clean and dairy-free.  Now why dairy-free you ask?  One reason is I have a few friends with an allergy to all things dairy and they can't eat anything cooked with dairy or it triggers migraines along with a slew of other digestive upsets. Also for anyone like myself who does not drink dairy milk on a regular basis, and might not have milk available in a pinch, this recipe is exactly what your looking for.  This recipe was very simple and even with the modifications turned out beautifully.


Ingredients

• 1 cup organic whole wheat flour or white whole wheat flour if you prefer less of a wheat taste
• 1 cup cornmeal ( i use Bob Red Mill's Organic)
• 1/2 cup honey (i use local organic raw honey)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 egg (organic cage free)
• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/3 cup melted coconut oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Then use coconut oil to grease the inside of a 8 inch square baking pan.  Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and then add the wet ingredients and mix on low to well combined.  Then poor evenly into the baking dish.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

It literally smelled so delicious i couldn't wait to get a bite! This corn bread was exactly what I needed today. I hope you all enjoy it as much as we did. 

Clean Eating Italian Mozzarella Burgers

There are few things in life that this family loves more then a delicious grilled burger.  As with all things in life I tend to get bored doing the same ol'e same burger with cheese on it.  So i decided one day this summer to  have some fun and just start experimenting.  Out of that experimentation I invented my favorite burger.  I utilize all fresh and organic ingredients and I truly believe that is what makes this burger.

Burger Ingredients

1 pound grass fed organic ground beef
1/4 ground almonds
1 TB onion powder
1 TB garlic powder
1 cage free egg
1/4 tsp salt
dash of pepper

Tomato Topping

Diced cherry tomato
diced 1/4 onion
1 minced garlic clove
3 chopped basil leaves
1 TB olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Place all the ingredients for the tomato topping in foil and mix with your hands so all the tomatoes are coated in the oil.  Then fold all 4 sides of the foil to make a tight grilling container and place on the grill.  You want to get these started 1st as they can take longer to cook.  You want them to be soft and cooked thoroughly..

Use a food processor or blender to make your ground almonds. In a large bowl combine all of your burger ingredients including the 1/4 cup ground almonds. Mix thoroughly with your hands.

Then make large patties for the grill. When the patties are almost cooked to your desire then top with fresh slices mozzarella cheese.  Serve on sprouted grain organic buns.

We use a charcoal grill and like all things when we started eating clean and less chemicals in our lifestyle we needed to switch out the charcoal we used.  Regular charcoal briquettes is coated with chemicals that don't entirely burn off in the cooking process. Through research I discovered a simply alternative: Real Hardwood Charcoal. 

Is usually made of maple, hickory, or mesquite wood that burned. It resembles pieces of burnt wood.  It cooks hotter then charcoal briquettes at 1000 F.  It lights faster, burns less ash, gives the food a purer wood flavor, and it is inexpensive.  I bought ours at whole foods for $4.99 in May and the 8.81 pound bag is still going strong. What's not to love it's better for you, cheap, better for the environment, and it makes the food taste amazing.  I would recommend trying to find some in your area.